Powder Day

 It's been a while since Rudy gave us one of his beautiful rodent swan dives :)

"Rodents under the snow! Incoming!" demonstrates diving Rudy.

Along with Rudy's fun dive, it is humorous to notice Jack in the prior photo. He clearly did not detect the same rodent activity as Rudy as he is still cruising uphill. It wasn't until Rudy completed his dive that Jack noticed what was going on! Of course, he circled back to check if Rudy really caught any rodents (no he didn't :)

We had some fresh snow overnight so we headed out to one of our favorite powder trails going up and down Baldy Mountain. Baldy is very steep, so we (or I :) need powder to keep the human alive on this steep terrain. Everyone uses the same initial trail to get up Baldy; but, after a couple of miles, you get into thinning trees as you approach treeline. Once the trees thin, people fan out every which direction to make their own path up & down upper Baldy. We found ourselves laying fresh tracks up our own route for a few miles. We then turned around to reuse the track we set on the way back down.

Well, initially Jack wanted nothing to do with our set track. He wanted to keep plowing in the fresh powder!

Jack blazing trail to the right while Rudy and I reuse the tracks we set
on the way up. Powder Jack!

Eventually Jack decided it really is easier to reuse the track you set up on the way down. Come along for a fun clip of us reusing the track we set on the way up. First tracks up and then second tracks down!

[watch on youtube if no video loads below]

As I mentioned, when you are down in the trees, everyone uses the same trail. So it was fast, fun and packed down lower:

Zooming along the common trail below treeline.

Even when in the trees, though, Jack, Rudy and I know some secret, lesser used trails to get our own fresh powder stash:

Breaking trail in our private powder stash!

What a fun way to make use of a powder day!

"Glad you wore those kids out!" states Zorro.
"We certainly earned our 'end of run' treats today!" adds Jack & Rudy.

Fun powder on steep baldy: 6.1 miles traveled with 900 feet of elevation climbed and a top speed of 21 MPH.

2020/2021 Season to Date: 69 days on the trails covering 552.1 miles with 48,700 feet of elevation climbed.